Pekin, Illinois

In January 1680, La Salle built Fort Crèvecœur on the east bank of Lake Peoria — a small wooden fort intended as a base from which to descend the Mississippi River. The name, French for 'heartbreak,' captured his mood after a brutal overland journey from Lake Michigan. He left a small garrison under his lieutenant Henri de Tonti and traveled back overland to Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, a 1,000-mile walk in winter, to bring up more men and supplies. While he was gone, the Fort Crèvecœur garrison mutinied. They looted the storehouse, destroyed the fort, and fled — reportedly scrawling a defiant message on a plank before leaving. Tonti and a handful of loyal men escaped further upriver to the Illinois village at present-day Starved Rock. The site itself is gone today, submerged or built over near the modern town of Creve Coeur, Illinois; only an Illinois state historic site marks the approximate location. Crèvecœur foreshadowed everything that would later destroy Fort St. Louis in Texas — overextended supply lines, frustrated men, leaders too far away.